Players from India and England lead the nominations for the ESPNcricinfo Awards, the shortlists for which were announced today. Each team had nine performances in the shortlists.
Shahid Afridi and Umar Gul were among eight players who received two nominations each. The others to be nominated more than once were Doug Bollinger, Kyle Mills, Andrew Flintoff, Gautam Gambhir, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chris Gayle.
The nominees also included eight men who made their international debuts in 2009: Bollinger, Umar Akmal, Fawad Alam, Wayne Parnell, David Warner, Jonathan Trott, Gavin Tonge and Roelof van der Merwe. Swansongs from Flintoff and Shane Bond also found a mention.
This is the third edition of the awards, which break from the tradition of naming players of the year and instead recognise particular performances - usually match- or series-turning ones.
The awards honour performances in six categories: batting and bowling in all three international formats of the game.
Of last year's winners, only Virender Sehwag (Test batting) and Ajantha Mendis (Twenty20 bowling) have been nominated this year. Sanath Jayasuriya and Dale Steyn, the other winners from last year, didn't have a memorable 2009.
The jury that decides the winners includes former cricketers such as Ian Chappell, Geoff Boycott, Daryll Cullinan, Tony Greig, Ramiz Raja, Sanjay Manjrekar and David Lloyd, and Cricinfo's editors and columnists.
Apart from the performance awards, there also are the Statsguru Awards, based on detailed data analyses of performances in the year, and the Readers' Choice Awards, based on votes by Cricinfo users.
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